“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The label was brittle and quite brown with age, and broke apart when removed. There was nothing on its reverse side. I thought such an old object might have some interesting impressions attached to it. The bureau it came from is an old- fashioned one that had sat in the garage of “our” apartment house for some years. Our landlord gave it to us, and we fixed it up and repainted it.

These are impressions. He is, or has been, or is thinking of, a gathering of people. Perhaps a faculty affair. A woman close to him in a yellow dress. A clock on a mantel, 4 PM. (Pause at 10:06.)

These are impressions.

(Break at 10:22. Jane was dissociated as usual. Her eyes had remained closed, her voice average. Her pace had been a little slow. She was not, she said, nervous while giving the Dr. Instream data. She said: “I did seem to see him standing with his mouth open in a characteristic pose, with a drink in his hand.” Jane said the impression was not too clear, and that she also had some impression of the living room and terrace of the Instream apartment, which we had seen in July 1965.

(Seth’s impressions do appear to be far-ranging, in connection with the old bureau and its label. Jane and I can make some connection with some of the material, but in the light of what follows we decided to wait. We will also try to verify some of the impressions through our landlord, Jimmy Spaziani. We do not know how much he can help, since he has owned our apartment house but a few years.

(Tonight Bill and Peggy Gallagher came to visit us. Bill told us that he would have to leave for a few minutes to pick up an advertisement at the bus terminal and take it to the newspaper office, the Star-Gazette, where he works. On the spur of the moment Peggy suggested that we all try to pick up impressions concerning the ad, while Bill was gone. Bill himself would not know the contents of the ad, which was in an envelope, until he opened it at the paper.

(Bill said that he would try to think strongly of the ad. He left here at approximately 10 PM and returned about 10:35. Rob, Peg, and I had all written down our impressions, and none of us knew what the others had written. None of Peg’s were correct. Many of mine, about 11 impressions, were correct, and some of Rob’s.

(My score would seem to be above chance. I did not seem to pick up impressions about the ad itself, however. I seemed to pick up impressions of Bill at the newspaper office, and follow him as he went about his chores. I had no idea at the time that any of my impressions were correct. Indeed I suspected that they were all wrong. I seem to work with words rather than images, that is, I pick up word impressions, I guess, rather than pictures.

(The following is an exact copy of the impressions as I wrote them on my slip of paper. The impressions themselves are in caps, and directly beneath the correctness or incorrectness is noted.

(While Bill Gallagher was putting on his hat and coat at 10 PM tonight, preparatory to leaving our apartment for the bus terminal, I wrote down two impressions of headlines. I was not in a trance state. Bill did not see these until he returned at 10:35 PM; he told me both of them were incorrect.

(After Bill left Jane and Peggy sat talking while I read. As she talked Jane jotted down her impressions. I interrupted my reading to put myself into a light trance state, and then wrote down four more impressions. Three of these proved to be correct. I used the trance state rather casually, and later wished I had written down more impressions; but I was interested in getting back to my reading.

(My impressions follow just as I wrote them down. They are in caps, followed by interpretations.

(Correct. The above impression and the following three were made in the light trance state. Bill said the description fits the stereotyper at the newspaper, and that the two of them discussed the ad this evening. Murphy, the stereotyper, whom I have never met, is according to Bill a large, rotund fat man. I have not been inside the newspaper building since Jane and I moved here five years ago.

(With this impression, as I sat with closed eyes, I seemed to receive a picture. I saw fairly clearly a four-column layout set in type; at the top was a plate for printing a photograph, with headline lettering on either side of the photo. I could not distinguish the subject matter of the photo. When Bill returned he asked me to diagram what I had seen. To the viewer’s left on page 321 is a copy of the drawing I made for him, to the right is a sketch of the actual ad as printed. On Friday night Bill told me my sketch was pretty close to the layout he finally decided upon at the office, and talked over with the stereotyper. My impression was of the metal printing plate, not the final printed ad. The metal appeared to be clean and unused and shining.)